The Rights of Nature Article 2
The Rights of the Living Earth are based on the philosophy that humans and nature are fundamentally interconnected and interdependent.

For the sustainability and advancement of humanity, we must create the conditions for achieving justice and well-being for both humans and other species and life forms. If we fail to do so, we instead accept a chaotic and impoverished world that is proving disastrous for humanity.

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In recent decades there have been growing efforts to extend notions of rights to non-human systems, and even natural entities such as rivers, forests etc., Indeed, the Earth’s entire ecosystems. This is indeed positive. The increasingly influential philosophy of Earth jurisprudence advocates deep transformations of legal and governance systems on the ground that humans are but one, if important, species of a broader community. Sooner or later, we will have to recognise that the Earth has rights, too, to live without the damage caused by human over-consumption and pollution.

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“What mankind must know is that human beings cannot live without the Living Earth, but the Living Earth can live without humans,” – Evo Morales

Present-day watchwords such as ‘inclusive justice’, ‘rights of Nature’, ‘rewilding’, ‘eco-democracy’, ‘Earth jurisprudence’, and ‘Indigenous reserves’ - reflect an emerging consciousness alignment with all of Earth's inhabitants. To achieve this alignment necessitates conserving nature on an extraordinary scale, while redefining our place in the world.  

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Natural Rights, or the Rights of Nature, is the recognition that Nature has rights. It is the recognition that trees, rivers, oceans, animals, plants etc., have rights just as human beings have rights. Rights of Nature are about balancing what is good for human beings with what is good for other species, and for the Earth’s ecosystems. It is the recognition that all life and all ecosystems on Earth are deeply interconnected.

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Rights of Nature recognize the Earth and all its ecosystems has inalienable rights: to exist, to live free of cruel and damaging treatment, and to maintain vital processes necessary for the harmonious balance that supports all life on this Living Earth.   

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For Rachel Carson, our ecological thoughtlessness was matched only by our lack of philosophical maturity. In the last paragraph of her book (Silent Spring), Rachel Carson concluded that, "the 'control of nature' is a phrase conceived in arrogance, born of the post-agricultural age of biology and philosophy, when it was supposed that nature exists for the convenience of man."

The effect of Carson's critique was to suggest to many people that what was needed first and foremost in regard to ecological problems was not bigger and better technical solutions, but rather a thorough rethinking of our most fundamental attitudes concerning our place in the larger scheme of things

Sadly, for much too long the non-human world seems curiously absent from our moral consideration. Indeed, describing the natural world in terms of human natural resources supports the false assumptions that human beings are in control of nature. Indeed, the false idea that the natural world is subject to human ownership and that distributive justice does not apply to non-humans needs to be addressed in order to protect the Living Earth and humanity itself.

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